dear ergometer

this is awkward, isn't it? i had no idea you were going to be at the castle, too.

after what happened between us last summer (the good and the bad), i left thinking that the best thing for both of us would be to spend some time apart. imagine my surprise the first time i walked into the gym to find you sitting there silently, as composed, resolute, and unflinching as you were back in kingston. i will admit that my pride was wounded when i realized that those 8 torrid months we spent together last year seemed to leave no trace on you. it was like i had never happened. me? i still have the scars -- especially from the time i pulled that 2000m piece and fell on to the floor in exhaustion with my feet still pressed against you.

so how are we going to handle this? we both have to be here, and we both have to spend time in the gym. i know we went for a little spin the other night, and it was great (all the good things from last summer, most definitely), but i don't want to fall into the same pattern of loving and hating you with the intensity i have experienced in the past.

what do you propose we do?

s.

p.s. remember this?

done like dinner

i just sent off those pesky dictionary entries.

*dance dance*

if i never have to tease out the difference between bell's life in london, penny bell's life and sporting news, the sportsman, and the sporting life EVER AGAIN, i will be one very happy periodicals junkie.

with a little help from my friends

CM, G, KK, J&J, A, P ... what would i do without you?

thanks guys.

thanks, geoffrey!

Hi Shannon,

We needed you in a show on the weekend at an art gallery so you could show off that dress again and you had to be overseas at the time!!

Too bad, but I hope your time there is fabulous.

cheers
g

nothing boosts a girl's morale more than to know that the fact she had to put her "modeling career" (note the inverted commas, meant to signal an ironic tone!) has left a certain lack in the world of fashion. this afternoon, i received the above e-mail from geoffrey, a friend back in kingston who designed the dress that i wore to the end-of-the-year english department christmas party this past december.

oh the glamour. it's killing me.

style sheets

wednesday will be a monumental day -- i've actually sked'd a deadline that i'm going to meet. as many of you know, i was contracted this summer to write a few entries for the british library's forthcoming dictionary of nineteenth-century journalism (now rendered more forthcoming due to my, er, timely contribution), and off to the editor those three darlings will go, bright and early wednesday morning. oooooo. it's going to be a good day.

i've been spending time in my turret, spitting and polishing -- you know? buffing up the prose a little? -- in preparation for this monumental occasion. in doing so, i realized that the spitting and polishing is not unlike giving (or getting!) a pedicure before a much-anticipated date. it's the part of writing (and foot care) i really do love.

the part of writing i really do hate, you ask, pedihistory aside? (and i know you're curious ...) aside from shitty first drafts (cf. anne lamott)? style sheets. i really hate formatting stuff to fit with style sheets. i find it mind-numbing.

thanks to my friend jon, this tune has therefore become the most recent addition to the soundtrack of my life.

castle life, a playlist

should my life at the castle (so far) ever be turned into a rock opera, here is the off-off-off-broadway cast album track listing:

1. never easy/peter murray
2. national anthem of nowhere/the apostle of hustle
3. rock and roll (live)/the velvet underground
4. my british tour diary/of montreal
5. LDN/lily allen
6. parklife/blur
7. if you've got trouble/the beatles
8. a foggy day/dinah washington
9. the aspidistra flies/stars
10. whales sing/the shaky hands

almost makes me want to get back on an erg ...

almost, but not quite.

there are days when the very liberal feminist in me is horrified at how much i miss the culture of the boathouse.



i can't help but wonder if the dark blues have the same kind of media machine that the queen's boys deploy in their war against mcgill ...

vid props, once again, to andrew rastapkevicius.

any suggestions?

i'd like to appeal to the collective wisdom of my wonderful friends and ask for help compiling a list of things i *must do while resident on the drizzly isle. i'm trying to devote my weeks to lots of hard work, and my weekends to exploring, and as you well know, nothing makes this type-a happier than making a list.

i've covered some ground on past trips (london galleries, and museums -- tho i'm planning on going to the V&A several times while i'm here ... how could i not? -- oxford, cambridge, and henley are fairly familiar territory, as are the innards of many libraries), and i've got the shoe shopping well, er, underway (please refrain from asking "but how are you going to get them (all) back to canada?!"). what i would love to hear about are places/activities you enjoyed while here, or would like to enjoy one day. historic or particularly charming or beautiful places, good restaurants, intriguing bookshops, wicked music stores, worthwhile hikes, anything at all really.

feel free to answer using the comment function below.

i await your responses with anxious anticipation!

bemused

why is it that, when talking to friends and family *on skype, we inevitably spend a disproportionate amount of time talking *about skype?

i realize now what the first telephone conversations must have been like:

"can you hear me?" (if you're my mom: "CAN YOU HEAR ME?!!!")

"isn't this cool?"

"yeah. can you say that again? you're voice isn't coming through clearly."

"sorry, the call got dropped."

plus ça change, eh?

my linguistic influences

we all know about uncle ted, but tonight, while talking to kiki, i found myself reflecting on others who have had a profound influence on my linguistic development.

from CM, who was the initial creator of uncle ted, i've learned to say boy (pronounced "bye") with proper east coast gusto, and between the two of us, we've developed the aural equivalent of a dismissive hand gesture: "pfffbvvt".

from G, i've discovered the liberation that comes with a heartily uttered "goddammit". i've also appropriated her term of endearment for one's workplace: the orifice. we've had lots of wurd fun coming up with possible band names (remember our brief stint as "The MAGIC Markers"?). strangely, during my sojourn across the pond, she has found herself saying "ack" and "narf" a lot.

but i can say wholeheartedly that kiki has been perhaps the most influential in, er, expanding my colourful vocabulary. along with teaching me how to properly savour a well-timed expletive (i think she would have been very pleased with the stream i let loose the other day on the misbehaving photocopier), she has also given me these fantastic gems:

"contraband banana"

"phlegm fatale"

and tonight's treasure,

"Machiavellian sisterhood"

listen and learn, my friends, listen and learn.

more vicky and al: orifice hours

the second installment in my neo-victorian reappropriation of victoria and albert.

good things

a list of good Castle-y things (in no specific order), excerpted from an e-mail to G:

-My new friends Eric and Rachel who took me to Eastbourne on the weekend. Rachel and I have been having the most amazing music chats both virtually and in real time. Eric is the first person I've met who is as nuts about old movies as I am. I made a reference at the dinner table to other night to some obscure B&W movie, and Eric had *seen it.

-Running outside. I did my first run to the village yesterday (around 5K, I think), and foolishly timed it so that I had to run the last leg of it in the nearly dark. I was running down a little-used road that comes into the back of the Castle property that's lined with hedgerows and the only light I had was the moon, but it was so bright ... Wow.

-Much Ado Books and the Badger Tea Room in Alfriston, both places I visited on Sunday with Rachel and another new friend, Peter. The Badger has to be experienced first-hand if only for the sponginess of the cake and the gawdyness of the china pattern. Much Ado was where I found a first edition of Nick Bantock's The Venetian's Wife, a book that changed my life. I also had to put back (oh the pain!) a first edition of Graham Greene's The End of the Affair.

-I'm no longer afraid of, or intimidated by, Thomas Carlyle. I suppose teaching someone does that, eh? He used to make me feel horribly inadequate, but no longer! In fact (how's this for ego), I pity him.

-My bass. I'm finding it easier to play here.

-A really considerate e-mail from a student, offering to send me a book I had lent him last term that he'd forgotten to return. He remembered that when I'd lent him this book, I'd told him how I was nervous about lending it because I'd lent it out twice before and didn't get it back, and how I didn't want to have to buy *yet another copy. In the e-mail he apologized for not getting in touch before the holidays and then offered to airmail the book ASAP. Books you lend out actually DO come back. Neat, huh?

more good to come ... i promise.

one last transatlantic dedication

this one's for you, J&J. wishing we could hang out with annie and the band at ben's. can't beat the décor there ... no pub here comes close!

another transatlantic dedication

this tune came through my headphones as i was making my way back to the castle on my afternoon run. yo, G. i miss you!

EPs, CM, and a transatlantic dedication

you should definitely have the EP of this dedicated to you, babe.

she's opening for iron and wine on january 19th in paris ... wanna go?

on the water

on saturday, two friends took me to eastbourne where i had my first taste of the sea. (sorry, no pics. i stupidly forgot my camera). as we walked out along the pier, i was surprised at how good it felt to be close to the water -- i had been feeling land-locked and didn't even know it.

along with being overcome by a desire to take an english seaside holiday complete with windbreak and anorak, i also realized how much i missed rowing. i truthfully don't miss the early mornings, but i do miss being in a boat with my hands on my blade and my feet in the stretchers, moving smoothly through sweet water. there are ergs in the castle gym, yes, but ... well ... it's just not the same. what i wouldn't give for just one more morning like this in an 8+ (vid props to former student and fellow rower andrew rastapkevicius):

it's a little game we like to play here ...

called find the academic.

it turns out that my turret office is somewhat difficult to locate, and thus i've decided to remedy the situation with this little sign, placed at a crucial turning point on the route from the dining hall to my office door. hopefully victoria and albert will prove helpful to those engaged in the never-ending pursuit of knowledge.

homesick ... blech

yup. it's official. i'm fucking homesick. i woke up this morning and all i wanted, not necessarily in any order whatsoever, was a cup of cooke's coffee (i'm rather partial to the chez piggy ii blend, but kingston's fav would do -- gawd knows i need the extra caffeine!), a windmills brunch with J&J and CM -- no trips to the LCBO to return any boxes, i promise -- a good ol' fashioned air guitar session/band chat with G, the relative (dis)comfort of my old orifice, a CSI night with Shani, a coffee & gossip date with Shelley, yoga with Kiki and Andrea, and the list goes on. and on and on.

imagine my surprise and delight when i discovered that two of my favourite bands are playing a joint show in brighton at the beginning of february. stars and the apostle of hustle are coming to the concord ii on february 4th, and hell yes, of course i'm going to be there ... wearing my ernie ball shirt! i've found a couple of like-minded music fans here at the castle, and we're setting about procuring tickets, so i'm hoping the anticipation of singing along to "take me to the riot" will get me through those moments in the next couple of weeks when home just seems too far away.

miss you!

the orifice (uk version)

imagine my surprise when i was handed my key to my office here at herstmonceux castle and discovered it was in a turret! a turret complete with leaded glass windows, a slightly dank odour and no heat. the view from the window above my desk is fantastic -- i can see the "folly" located farther out on the castle grounds. the other two windows overlook the moat (yup, there's a moat -- and residents are cautioned against swimming in it in the "welcome book" with the words: "lastly, the water in the moat is not suitable for swimming as ingestion of this water is likely to result in an overnight stay in hospital"), and the west entrance (sorry, no drawbridge).

while i'm looking forward to the course i'm teaching this term, i'm a little sad that there are no gothic novels on the syllabus ('twouldn't work, i'm afraid, with the course focus). all of a sudden i feel very like a beleaguered gothic heroine, what with readings to wrangle, a syllabus to finalize, and oh yeah, ye ol' dissertross to tame, and some how, reading about those innocent young maidens and enjoying the ingenious ways in which the plots always work out in their favour (unless you're stuck in a novel by matthew lewis) would be somewhat reassuring right now.

success!

who is the packing queen?

what's that?

i can't hear you!

finally, after countless hours arranging, rearranging, purging, rescuing, squishing, and holding my breath (as if that would actually help), my bags are packed and ready to go. *and they weigh in at *exactly the maximum weight posted by the airline.

now i realize that at some point i'm going to have to pack again for my return trip with far more stuff than i originally packed in the first place, but allow me my small moment of victory.